If you can't find an obvious reason for a broad social change, the most likely suspect is demographics.
What was the number of late teenagers (15-19) in the early 1990s, versus today? Fewer teenagers means less stupidity, and murder is usually considered a gross act of stupidity.

Everyone ever read 'Freakonomics' at the Economist desk? That's one other explanation. There they state part of the drop in the '90's was due to the abortion act. Women that did not want kids could abort them, young mothers not ready for them and so on. Drops in crime were significant from the time these kids would reach the age of 14-16. I think all of this works together, like always, it's a total picture of everything.

Check out Dr. David K Foot, economics prof at U of Toronto - his book Boom, Bust & Echo 2000 outlines the impact the Baby Boomers - (approx 90 million in the U.S. and 9 million in Canada) has influenced everything in the North American culture simply because of their sheer percentage size of the population. Most violent crime is perpetuated by teens and twenties. The high crime periods were when the boomers were that age. They are now approaching and some are post retirement. Older people do not commit violent crime - so crime stats are now down. However they commit white collar crime in greater volumes. Thus increasing corruption in finance and governments as these aging boomers assume control and leadership roles in these fields. The 2008 meltdown bears testament to this idea

"there might have been no statistically significant difference one could isolate for any of these things. And yet it seems extremely likely to me that most or all of these were good things to do! The drop in violent crime probably has to do with all of them. So we probably need to . . . go ahead and do things that seem like they probably work."

This is a perfectly idiotic conclusion.

If we can't find an effect of any of these measures, then the most rational thing to conclude is that none of them had an effect (NOT that somehow all of them did). *Face-palm*

It is perfectly possible, after all, that the fall in crime was the result of large-scale demographic changes -- which are beyond the scope of government to alter -- and nothing whatsoever to do with the variety of minor policy initiatives.

What's the alternative to evidence-based policy? Your answer seems to be "doing things that seem to me to be likely to work" (irrespective of the evidence as to whether they do or not). In other words, intuition-based policy. *Double-face-palm*

The problem is, as always, people have different intuitions about what might work, and such intuitions are unreliable. In the absence of evidence to choose between them, you are just left with ideological commitment and politics to determine policy. (Remember abstinence-based sex education? How did that work out?)

There's no evidence of demographic changes being the cause either. What happens when you know something's happened but can't prove definitely why? Sometimes we don't have enough data to say "Policy X contributed 40%, trend Y contributed 35%, and policy Z contributed 25%." It's not about ignoring evidence; it's about taking what evidence you do have and making reasoned choices instead of waiting for a certainty that never comes.

Yeah, except that, in this case, the article claims that "none of them work".

And there are obviously negative externalities in pursuing policies that haven't been shown to work.
- they cost a lot of money (that could be spent on other policies)
- it obscures the need to look for other policies that may work better
- it undermines the general principle of using evidence to decide what to do

Look, either the policy doesn't work, or the study that assessed its effectiveness wasn't designed very well. So, either change the policy, or design the study better. It's not that complicated. The worst thing to do is say "to hell with the evidence"! That's how we got into the mess where senators profess ignorance about the age of the earth, deny global warming, and dismiss evolution. Or, what's to stop someone coming along with a policy that says "Wearing blue hats lowers crime" -- and when it doesn't, they just say "Oh come on man, you are waiting for certainty that never comes? Some things work some of the time, and others don't. What's the problem?".

Your example is a case in point. Turns out that exercise doesn't help you lose weight, and low-fat diets aren't that much better either. But the dogmatic insistence that these things "seem to me to be likely to work, so let's carry on doing them" has led a generation of dieters to failure and illness, and has obscured the need to try something else that might work better.

I did 27 years with NYPD. I was there before and after "the bad years", the Dinkins administration and the crack epidemic. I was on the street as a lieutenant in the warrant division (all we did was lock people up. And we locked up a lot of people)during the Giuliani adminstration. I sat in on meetings at the highest levels of the Police Department and nobody could explain why crime was plummeting. As stange as it seems, I'd put my money on the lead in the environment theory. If you look at the graphs of the two statistics, lead in the environment and crime rates, the graphs look like they're in lock step. I think everything else contibuted but acually followed from the reduction of lead.

I recommend to readers that they read the freakonomics explanation of falling crime rates. Put simply, all the actions by authorities during the 90s onwards only attributed to around half of the drop in crime rates experienced. The other half was as a result of legalised abortion

M.S. wrote "...given our inability to explain definitively why the crime rate is falling, we may need some scepticism about the recent push to demand scientifically valid evidence for the effectiveness of social betterment programmes."

WOW!!! What a revelation... "...we may need some scepticism about the recent push to demand scientifically valid evidence..."

Head butting is good for brain improvement [Example: Jefferson v. Adams]. Of course that's true sometimes only. [Imagine either butting with Limbaugh] One can butt with the wrong head and end up needing stomach improvement instead.

Well, if murder rate is defined as those who didn't die in ER, those suggesting that docs got better coping with gunshot wounds would have a point. So the real question is have assaults changed in line with murder rates?

All violent crime is down, as is property crime so it is not medical care.

I believe there is an obvious contributor that I never see mentioned, and that is the proliferation of cell phones. In 1985 if you got accosted on the street or thought you might be, there wasn't much you could do about it. Today, you can simply reach in your pocket and dial 911, or you can pull out your phone and dial a friend ahead of time. Criminals know this, and thus realize they have a much higher chance of having the cops arrive than they might have 20 years ago.

Perhaps it is the ability of those cell phones to take pictures and instantly transmit them elsewhere. The police may not arrive quickly, but if they've got pictures of the perp, their chances of finding him go way up compared to mere descriptions and maybe a sketch artist.

Maybe, but think about it. Somebody is beating on you, has nabbed your purse (or man bag), or back pack, or worse is pointing a gun or knife at you. Really, are you going to say, hey let's take a picture?

Reminds me of the cartoon of a scientist saying something along the lines of, “What if there is no global
warming? We’d clean up the environment, improve energy efficiency, and develop new long-term sources of energy for nothing!”

That's like saying just in case vampires are real, the government should spent trillions planting garlic and if vampires aren't real, at least we have lots of garlic. We'd have hurt economic growth for nothing. I support carbon pricing because I believe the costs of climate change even reduced by its probability is greater than the cost of mitigation but it absolutely matters if I'm wrong. The road to economic ruin is paved with good intentions.

Whereas the situation we are in now, paved with greed, lies and obfuscation is a land of milk and honey?

I'd rather have "wasted" our economic dividend in the last decade or two on vampire hunting and garlic growing than bailing out maleficent financial institutions. As you say, at least now we have garlic.

Well, and I realise this may sound a little bit flippant, but compared Constitution and law the last few decades, the hassle of being stopped in the street seems quite mild.

Rendition, Torture, Wire-Tapping, Undeclared Wars...etc...etc...

And to be fair, this is why there is the separation and balance of powers. There's a lawsuit working its way through the courts and the racial profiling and unconstitutional stop and frisk policy will then hopefully make the incipient racial disparity of the US legal system less visible once more.

Well I would choose option B. Removing tax breaks, rebates, subsidies, loopholes etc for the wealthy and big business. Ensure taxes are paid and not evaded, avoided or sent off-shore,. Take half of that money raised and put it towards paying down the deficit and the other half into the infrastructure projects and improvements the US so desperately needs and the furetraining and reskilling the unemployed for the jobs that are the future

Come on, RestrainedRadical—it’s not like that and I have trouble believing that you don’t know that. If there were strong evidence of the existence of vampires and many instances of attacks against humans that appeared to be conducted by vampires, then it would be like that. As it stands, though, your reductio is rather too absurdum.

Compared to being waterboarded hundreds of times, hit with a drone strike in your home,being dragged off the street illicitly bungled into a van and transported to a third country to be tortured. Yes, I would say it is comparatively mild.

I did not say right, I did not say I agree with it. And at least those subjected to this can the option of restitution through the courts, which is more than the victims of the rest of these acts can look forward to.

Let me state categorically that I am against all stop and search, or any invasion of privacy without at least a court order or something more substantial than a slight suspicion that the person may be walking while non-white. I am against racial profiling and all that goes with it.

improve energy efficiency, and develop new long-term sources of energy for nothing!”

Carbon pricing does not increase energy efficiency, as in price per gigawatt, it raises it. If wind, solar, or butterfly kisses really were the most efficient forms of energy, they wouldn't need a government subsidy. They need a subsidy because they are inefficient as it stands, and if you less carbon, there's the case for moving America to more expensive energy sources. But not if it turns out that it isn't warranted. Then it's not for nothing, it's higher prices paid by struggling families to heat their houses.

As it stands, though, your reductio is rather too absurdum.

Right back atchya buddy. That's what he was illustrating, if carbon mitigation isn't warranted, then it's as bad an idea as vampire mitigation.

I am not young and am as white as it's possible to be short of albinism. I do not feel threatened by men of color, whether wearing hoodies or looking like the President of the US. I do not understand the mentality of people who, white or Hispanic, are armed and prone to killing people of color for no good reason [except they are different from me and the difference scares me].

It has happened again, in Florida again, and because of stupid laws, again, that allow a silly NRA promoted defense. Self defense laws already exist, the "stand your ground" addition provided nothing new except a potential cover for gratuitous assault.

NRA members need to grow a mind and a conscience to go with it. Lawmakers need to get both a conscience and the courage to take on the interests and the gun-toting wackos and return the law to sane civility.

I ran into and old colleague. Asked him how everything's going. He said, "Same old, same old." Then added, "You know, life doesn't change. If it does, you are unstable." We laughed our heads off - two in a profession presumably to help people change, when they come complaining life sucks. In any case, I never was better, and I am not getting better. That's for sure. But I think seriously Whipper has a point. I think there is an accretion of collective wisdom, however slow. There is a lot to be optimistic about.

That we aren't committing more violent crimes necessarily means we're better people. But that doesn't help us understand why. We suddenly and dramatically became better people over the last 2 decades for no apparent reason?

A thought. The South is significantly more violent than the North. Is it possible that the descendants of Black Southerners who came North long ago have gradually changed culturally to become less violent?

I don't think that's the case - in places i usually hang out - Chicago, Detroit, Flint/Saginaw MI, blacks happily continue to murder each other. North overall simply has less blacks. BUT - it's not hopeless. In Saginaw, for example back in 2006/2007 arsonists would set fires to entire city blocks, not just buildings, causing massive damage. Since then, local communities organized a neighborhood watch to keep an eye for the arsonists, and now fires are down big time. And Saginaw is no longer Murder Capital of America (per capita, for cities of equivalent size and larger)! We got a top spot for rape though, which is a bit dispiriting. Anyway, bottom line - community action matters. Crime rate is heavily influenced by how united your neighborhood is against it.

White people in the south are more verbally and physically aggressive than those in the North, and they have more guns; but when southern whites move to the North they get disarmed and are less able to act out. So, racially it works both ways. The next bigoted comment will no doubt note the increase in Latino names on police blotters.

Although it is possible to correlate individual instances of crime with race, it is more accurate to correlate it to poverty. Poor people commit more violent crimes because of poverty and lack of education and positive acculturation.

Decrease poverty, increase education and the increasing equalization and integration will decrease violent crime. However, teach gang members to use computers and the internet and the sophisticated "white collar" crime rate will soar. This is another point. It isn't race it is a tendency to antisocial or criminal behavior.

One correction: I believe it was the first day in NYC in recent memory with zero murders, shootings, or stabbings. There are 500-odd murders per year in NYC, spread unevenly across 365 days, so there will certainly be plenty of days with zero murders.

Could it be that the rise of crime rates was the anomaly and now the crimes are back to some "normal" level? Though I guess there is no "normal" level of crime that could be stated in any given time and place.

I'm not saying the thesis is wrong but Philip Cohen doesn't actually show that single motherhood isn't correlated with crime. We don't have a toddler drug gang problem. There's at least a 15-year lag. He should've compared crime rates with single mother rates from 15 years earlier.

And "single motherhood" is very broad. It could include upper-income moms in stable cohabitating relationships or poor moms with the baby daddies in prison.

The continuing decline of crime rates doesn't look good for the Freakonomics thesis which says the abortion effect should've stabilized crime rates by now. To be fair, they also credit the rising prison population, more police on the streets, the decline of the crack epidemic (though I'm not sure if that's a cause or effect), and possibly less exposure to lead. I might add improved treatment of mental illness and people spending more time in-doors. There's certainly a cultural shift though I'm not sure if that's a cause or effect either. Anybody have crime rate trend data for other OECD countries?

Philip Cohen doesn't show that single motherhood isn't correlated with jail time for the offspring.

With the War on Drugs, we've essentially locked up a lot of real criminals by locking up even more potential criminals. It's pretty darn close to genetic profiling. It's immoral and we should be ashamed of it as a society. So let's stop patting ourselves on the back for the great job we've done reducing crime when it was achieved by perpetrating a great, collective crime.

All of the people I knew growing up who ended up in prison or in trouble with the law had two parents. Generally in my experience of my area it is the circle of friends the children travel in, rather than the parents that presents the problem.

Pointing at Single Mothers and saying they are the cause of societies ills is generally pointing at some of the hardest working people in society and dumping the its failures on them. 40 hour work week plus 168 hour mothering week.

Nobody's blaming single mothers. If anyone's being blamed it's absentee fathers. That two-parent households produce better outcomes for children on average is indisputable, your small sampling not withstanding.

Perhaps.But I have to say I find the idea that fathers who are absent by their own choice, whether it is a choice to commit criminal acts that land them in prison or just not to be present would improve matters by sticking around rather laughable.

My understanding is that the general trend in crime stats is a rise throughout the 70s, 80s, and early 90s with a decline beginning some time in the 90s and generally continuing from then. Another notable thing is that the US is an outlier primarily for assault deaths, we are far more similar in other forms of crime other than a brief period in the 80s and 90s (my memory is foggy on this, so I may be off on us diverging generally at all).

I usually see a lot of credence given to the crack epidemic being the reason for the divergence in the 80s and 90s of the US from OECD crime stats generally. Crack cocaine disrupted existing supply networks more for us than it did for other countries (think of the rise of the big street gangs, more traditional criminal groups tended to retain control in Europe) leading to more violence as well as more crime generally as knock on effects. I don't know how much of the divergence this explains.

The US probably diverges on assault deaths because of how much more common these assaults occur with guns compared to other countries. Assaults themselves aren't much different, but tend to involve less lethal arms outside the US. There's a fair amount of evidence that gun ownership isn't the cause, countries like Canada (I think) and Switzerland aren't that much different. The variation is that we lack good controls on gun tracking and registration compared to other countries with widespread firearm possession (I realize I may be unnecessarily opening a can of worms here), making it easier for US petty criminals to be in possession of firearms.